The Athens demonstration
to support Dancing Bruce of Carrboro turned ugly when the riot police
raced into Syntagma Square wielding their shields and canisters
of tear gas. What began as a peaceful demonstration with thousands
walking through the streets of Athens showing their support for
Dancing Bruce became a disco queen's nightmare in only a matter
of moments.

No one is exactly sure
what caused the riot police to take a heavy hand. At 3pm all was
calm and under control as the thousands marched and chanted slogans
in support of Dancing Bruce. At approximately 315pm a disturbance
broke out in the outer fringes of the demonstration. Everyone agrees
that the change came after five short fat Greek woman dressed up
as Bruce walked up to the riot police lining the street and started
to dance. What no one agrees on was what the dance was that the
little protesting women did that so infuriated the riot police.
Some say it was a little break dance spin, others the Syrtaki, a
traditional Greek dance while others insist that they began to Waltz.
The Carrboro News in its effort to be as accurate as possible asked
one hundred people what the dance was.....and received one hundred
different answers, so your guess is as good as ours.

Demonstrators begin
on Metropolis Street in downtown Athens. Note the sign in
the bottom right hand corner carried by the group who failed
to realize that the protest was no longer for the teachers
but instead for Dancing Bruce.

As the riot police attacked,
more and more people began to dance and more and more riot police
attacked more and more people and more and more people began to
dance. What kind of dance? Any kind you can think of...swing, free
interpretation, modern, The Polka, The Electric Slide, The Mexican
Hat Dance, The Bulgarian Fisherman's Dance, The German Potato Dance,
The Russian Vodka Dance, The Spanish Bull Dance. Thousands danced
forming a picture of total chaos and the riot police got angrier
and angrier, lobbing more and more tear gas into the crowd turning
the thousands of dancers into thousands of sobbing dancers, with
first just a tear in their eyes followed by a few gentle sobs and
finally erupting into uncontrollable wails sounding not unlike a
visit to The Wailing Wall when its in full swing..

The riot police continued
to attempt to disperse the crowd and the wailing continued.

"We love Bruce and
everything he stands for", one demonstrator told us as tears
were streaming down his cheeks. "He is America, He is the American
Dream. Bruce IS the American Dream!".

"Yes", another
demonstrator chimed in. "Bruce has life, Bruce is...Bruce is...
The Zorba of America. He is the embodiment of Greece in an American's
body. We don't think he belongs in America. We should bring him
to Greece where he can dance and be with his people".

We explained that Bruce
was sort of a national treasure of Carrboro and it would be very
difficult for us to let him go and to prove our point asked them
if they would mind shipping the Parthenon to Carrboro. The reply
was in the form of a stunned silence as we were looked at in disbelief.
"Are you crazy?".

"Just as crazy as
you are for asking us for Bruce", we replied.... and then rushed
back to the hotel to file this story.

The riot police
heading towards Syntagma Square to squelch the riot. If you
look closely you can see that the second police officer appears
to be dancing his way up the street. Could he be a Dancing
Bruce sympathizer?